---
title: "Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya prank Rylan Clark for Children in Need as kids feed them lines"
url: https://badiyaa.com/chalamet-zendaya-rylan-clark-prank/
published: 2026-11-14T08:24:00+00:00
modified: 2026-11-14T08:24:00+00:00
section: Entertainment
publisher: Badiyaa
---

# Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya prank Rylan Clark for Children in Need as kids feed them lines

Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and the Dune: Part Three cast pranked Rylan Clark for BBC Children in Need while three kids fed them lines.

Timothée Chalamet thought an air fryer auction mattered more than his own movie. That, at least, is what three children told him to say. The Dune: Part Three star, alongside Zendaya, Anya Taylor-Joy and Jason Momoa, turned a press junket into a prank on British presenter Rylan Clark for BBC Children in Need, the UK’s annual charity telethon, which aired on Friday, November 13.

## Who Rylan Clark is, for North American viewers

If the name is new to you, Clark is one of the busiest faces on British television. He first became famous as a flamboyant contestant on The X Factor in 2012, then won Celebrity Big Brother in January 2013. Since then he has hosted daytime and reality shows, fronted a weekend program on BBC Radio 2, and has co-commentated on the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals since 2018. He is, in other words, a professional interviewer who knows exactly how a junket is supposed to go, which is what made him a good target.

## The air fryer bit

According to an account of a preview clip released before the broadcast, one of the children’s orders was for Chalamet to check his phone mid-interview and tell Clark he was “bidding on an air fryer” and currently in the lead. A moment later he announced, “No I’ve lost the lead,” and Taylor-Joy consoled him with “Man I’m sorry.” The same preview showed a baffled Clark asking the room: “Is everyone all right?”

The charity’s own page for the sketch sets up the premise plainly: three children “go undercover” during Clark’s interview with the four stars as they discuss Dune: Part Three. Clark believed he was doing a normal round of promotional questions. Instead, the kids sat in a separate room and fed instructions to the cast through earpieces.

The full sketch ran during the live appeal show on BBC One and the BBC iPlayer streaming service. Clark co-hosted that night alongside Alex Jones, Mel Giedroyc, Sara Cox and Tyler West.

## What Children in Need is

Children in Need is the BBC’s in-house charity, and its telethon has been a fixture of British TV since 1980. Think of it as the UK’s answer to a big US network fundraising night: three hours of sketches, music and celebrity stunts, broken up by short films about the local projects the money pays for. Since 2021 the show has been staged at the Dock10 studios in MediaCityUK, Salford, near Manchester. Its mascot is Pudsey Bear, a yellow teddy with a spotted bandana over one eye.

For the film’s cast, the sketch landed five weeks before release: Dune: Part Three, the final chapter of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novels, reaches cinemas on December 18, 2026. Villeneuve’s run of big-screen science fiction is a theme we covered in our look back at [Arrival’s 10th anniversary and its eight Oscar nominations](https://badiyaa.com/arrival-villeneuve-10th-anniversary-amy-adams/), and his next move is in our explainer on [what Amazon MGM has confirmed about Villeneuve’s James Bond film](https://badiyaa.com/denis-villeneuve-james-bond-26-confirmed/).

## How much the night raised

The charity’s website now shows a 2026 appeal total of £38,720,170. For comparison, the 2025 show’s broadcast-night total was £45,507,536, according to the telethon’s public record, so this year’s on-the-night figure came in about £6.8 million lower. Totals usually keep climbing for weeks after the broadcast as fundraisers pay in.

British TV is having a busy charity-and-celebrity season: [Wayne Rooney leads the I’m A Celebrity 2026 lineup](https://badiyaa.com/wayne-rooney-im-a-celebrity-2026-lineup/). Dune: Part Three opens in theaters on December 18.

## Further reading

- [Wikipedia: Children in Need](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_Need)

- [Wikipedia: Rylan Clark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylan_Clark)

*Image: Valienne, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons*

*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*